The Boy
by Spacefille
Summary: Post Buu saga – an injured and frightened young boy who looks identical to Frieza lands on Earth. Vegeta finds him first.
1. Chapter 1

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He usually did his training in the gravity room. Occasionally that became stifling and he'd go out into the wilderness to train. There was something to be said for infinite amounts of space and being able to fly quickly without having to worry about smashing into a wall.

It was one of those days when it happened. Something familiar came streaming out of the sky and crash landed a valley over from him.

Vegeta paused. That looked like a….

He was off towards it in an instant.

As soon as he came hovering over the impact crater he could see it was exactly what he thought it was. He hadn't seen a space pod in years. He warily sensed out the occupant, but the energy signature was so weak he could barely feel it.

The door of the space pod opened… nothing moved.

Vegeta stared. He folded his arms across his chest for a moment, then gracefully landed. Now that he was in front of it he could see someone or something inside the pod but nothing was coming out.

He growled softly, every sense on alert as he stalked towards it. Whoever it was, they were on his turf, on his planet and that made him angry.

He got within a few feet of the pod when the occupant finally moved, stood, stepped into the light.

Vegeta's blood ran chill and he froze.

The being lifted its head. Red eyes stared up at him.

Vegeta instantly started to power up. Those red eyes widened and he went down with a cry, falling to his knees and throwing his arms across his face. "Please don't kill me!" he exclaimed in a higher pitched version of a very familiar voice. "I'm not him!"

He almost did it. Almost. The faint dart of old fear had quickly been replaced with rage and he wanted nothing more but to incinerate this creature and his pod. The pleading cry was what stopped him, or at least gave him pause enough to look. _HE_ would never beg like that.

He took a deep breath and his brow knit. The being trembled on its knees, arms still up, tail wrapped protectively around his legs - what remained of his tail that is. Long scraps decorated his entire body, staining the white and purple with crusted deep red. He was injured then, heavily by the looks of it. That explained the lack of power. He was small too, smaller that the first, and his voice…

His eyes widened and he dropped his hand. He was a child.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice harsh. "Why do you look like Frieza?" The boy flinched and didn't lower his arm.

"I'm a clone," the boy said, his voice breathy with fear.

Clone… Vegeta inspected him as he sat there in the dirt and shook. Frieza died ten years ago. If this boy was created at that time… he would be no more than ten. "Why are you here?" he said finally.

The boy slowly lowered his hands and looked up at him.

"Don't look at me," Vegeta snapped, irrationally, and the boy obeyed immediately, going down on his hands and knees, his head kept low.

"They said someone here could protect me," he said softly. "Someone who wouldn't care what I looked like."

That baffled Vegeta for a moment, until he figured it out. Kakarrot. They must have meant Kakarrot. The strongest man in the universe who had a habit of letting mass murders go instead of killing them. Prime example… "Frieza met his end here," Vegeta said, lip curling in disgust. Why was he even trying to speak to it?

If anything that made the boy shake more and he lowered his head down until his forehead touched the earth. The shaking stopped and the boy relaxed. "I was set up," he said softly. There was a low note of helplessness to his voice.

Vegeta marched forward, kicking the boy so that he sprawled onto his back. He placed a foot in the middle of his chest, pinning to the ground. The boy kept his head rolled to the side, resolutely staring into the trees instead of up at Vegeta. Vegeta could see then that the injuries also extended to his face, it looked like the protective wall of flesh around his ear had been half torn off. Vegeta frowned.

"Who sent you?" he demanded to know.

The boy drew in a trembling breath. "Men… kidnapped me from my creators. They – they hurt me… said I was weak… a mockery of my - the original. One… one of them took pity. He put me in the space pod and told me someone will help me here," he dared to look up at Vegeta, and there was a tired look on the boy's face, his eyes half lidded. "He lied," he said, sounding far older than a child now. Vegeta recognized the despairing and defeated look on his face. He expected to die.

"Don't look at me," Vegeta repeated with a soft snarl, and the boy looked away again. He shut his eyes and Vegeta could see the faint glimmer of tears against the pale white skin.

Energy flickered in Vegeta's hand and he raised it. For a long he stood there, frozen in place. Finally he snarled softly and lowered his hand again. He couldn't kill it. This wasn't Frieza. He may be a copy, but he was already beaten, broken and defeated… helpless.

And young. He thought of Trunks… this boy was about the same age as his own son. He thought of Kakarrot too. Kakarrot would not be happy to find out he killed a weak and helpless child because of what he looked like. He growled to himself and removed his foot.

For a long moment the boy didn't move. When he did he rolled onto his side, curling up in to a fetal position. The tail came up again - about a third of it was missing - what remained wrapped around the boy's body protectively. He remained like that.

Vegeta stared. "Get up," he said finally with disgust.

"Why?" the boy replied warily, even as he uncurled and started to move.

Vegeta let out a growl, powering up, and the boy got to his feet quickly, cowering up against the side of the space pod, leaning against it for support. His wide eyes met Vegeta momentarily and then he remembered and looked away again, trying to look anywhere but at Vegeta.

It was then that Vegeta saw he wasn't putting any weight on one of his legs, his foot was raised off of the ground by a tiny bit. Lame then, to go with the battered tail and abuse that decorated the rest of his body. He whimpered as Vegeta stalked towards him, falling back against the side of the space pod.

"Please," he whispered. He held out a hand as if to ward him off as his tail lashed. "Please…"

Vegeta paused, his eyes narrowed.

He made a decision. The boy didn't even see him move. Vegeta hit the boy in the neck with the side of his hand and the boy collapsed, unconscious, into the dirt.

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	2. Chapter 2

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He dumped the boy unceremoniously on the ground and stepped back, his arms folded across his chest. He didn't have to wait long for the two Namekians to emerge from the confines of the palace.

He smirked at the looks of surprise on both of their faces. Piccolo stopped short and his eyes widened as he stared. "Vegeta is that…" he began.

"I don't think it's him," that was Dende now, the small god spoiling all of his fun. "Not entirely," he amended. Dende stepped over to the injured boy, crouching down, his hands already glowing.

"Dende, is that wise?" Piccolo asked, alarmed, and Dende raised his head. A small smile lit his face.

"It's okay, Piccolo," he said. He then turned back to his patient. He frowned slightly, then sighed. "I can't repair the tail," he said regretfully. He finished and stepped back again, and they all watched as the boy twitched and moaned softly. He looked up at Vegeta. "It was good of you to let him live."

Vegeta grunted. Ever since Dende got his god powers he felt like he could look right through him. It was irritating to say the least.

The boy sat up, touching his head with a three fingered hand as they watched him. The boy looked up at the two Namekians with wide eyed alarm, then turned and saw Vegeta. He let out a low cry and leapt to his feet, scrambling back from all three.

"It's okay, we're not going to hurt…" Dende began, stepping forwards.

Piccolo deflected the energy blast before it could hit Dende.

The boy panicked, full out, sending energy blasts at all three of them.

They weren't nearly strong enough to cause any of them harm, except maybe Dende, but it was enough to put Piccolo into defensive mode.

"Stop it!" the large Namekian roared. In two seconds flat he had the boy back on the ground of the palace in a choke hold. The boy cried out, biting and scratching before giving up and relaxing in Piccolo's hold with a small moan of fear.

Piccolo leaned down so that he could talk to the boy quietly. "We're not going to hurt you, but if you keep attacking us we will," he said. "If I let you go, I need your word that you won't attack us."

The boy looked up, towards Vegeta. "He hates me," he said.

"He might," Piccolo replied. "But he also brought you here to heal you."

It was like all the fight had gone out of the boy at that. "He did?" he said, utter confusion in his voice.

"He did," Piccolo confirmed. The look the big Namek shot Vegeta told him he'd better not do anything to frighten the boy again. Vegeta snorted and turned away, showing them his back.

The boy stared at Vegeta's backside for a long moment. "I promise," he said.

Piccolo let him go slowly, and stood. The boy sat up.

Dende approached then. "My name is Dende," he offered, crouching down next to the boy. "What's yours?" he asked.

The boy looked up at him, confused. "I don't…" he stopped, then started again. "Frieza," he replied.

Dende gave him a gentle smile. "You don't have any other name?" he asked.

The boy shook his head. "They never gave me one," he said. "I'm just Frieza."

"Okay," Dende sat down next to him. The boy shifted but stayed put, wide eyes studying the Namekian with curiosity. "Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?" Dende asked.

Piccolo decided the crisis was over and the boy wasn't about to attack again. He looked up to find Vegeta standing against one of the trees now with a scowl and his arm folded across his chest.

Piccolo approached with a swish of his cape. He spoke when he neared in a low enough voice that the others could not hear him. "I'm surprised you didn't kill him on sight," he said.

Vegeta was silent."I almost did," he said finally. The fact that the boy was there, and looked like Frieza in every way except size set his teeth on edge.

"What is he?" Piccolo asked.

"A clone," Vegeta replied shortly. "Why anyone would want to recreate that insufferable monster is beyond me."

Piccolo seemed to accept that. He stood, silently for a moment, watching the boy and Dende talk. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Me?" Vegeta replied. "I don't plan do to anything with the brat. Send him back the way he came!"

Piccolo gave him a look.

"What?" Vegeta exclaimed. "What am I going to do, take him _home_ with me?"

"Would you prefer he run around on the planet unsupervised?"

Vegeta grit his teeth. "Let Kakarrot take care of him," he snapped.

"Again," Piccolo said in an amused tone of voice. "Would you prefer he run around unsupervised?"

Vegeta twitched. "You can't honestly expect me to even care what happens to the copy of that freak." He looked over where the Frieza clone sat next to Dende, and now he could see that his shortened tail was moving back and forth happily as he spoke to the young god.

"If you didn't care, you wouldn't have brought him here," Piccolo pointed out.

Vegeta glared. "Shows what you know," he said. "Maybe I just want to use the brat. It'd be fun to turn him into my own personal slave," there was venom in his voice.

He got a raised eyebrow ridge at that, but Piccolo didn't reply, just nodded once and looked away again.

Vegeta calmed down, glowering as he thought. If what the boy had said was true, he couldn't send him back into space. Even if Frieza wore body armor most of the time, the resemblance between this boy and Frieza's first form was enough to make it so the boy would never be safe. Except maybe on a planet of pacifists, like Namek, and even then they were going to remember the creature that killed most of their race. If he was stronger, maybe…

"You could train him," Piccolo offered, almost as if he had read Vegeta's thoughts. "He has a lot of potential."

"I thought training children was your job," Vegeta returned nastily. He didn't even bother mentioning the fact that training the miniature Frieza would make him just as powerful as the fully grown one. It wasn't like a fully grown Frieza would be a threat any longer, they had far out stripped his power years ago.

Piccolo glanced at him. "I can train him if you want me too," he said.

Vegeta sighed and shook his head. "I'll take him," he grumbled, pushing away from the tree.

"Brat," he said when he approached. The boy scrambled to his feet, then looked everywhere but at Vegeta. Vegeta's lip curled. "Look at me," he snapped.

The boy raised his head slowly. Vegeta's jaw set as those very familiar red eyes met his own. He was going to have to get used to it. And quickly, if he intended to train the boy. He briefly wondered if he was insane for even considering it… Frieza had made his life a living hell for 25 years and now he was going to help the pathetic weakling child version of that horrible lizard? "You're coming with me," Vegeta told him.

The boy took a step back. "Can't I stay here…?" he tried. He shot a desperate look at Dende. Vegeta made a disgusted sound and blasted off into the air.

"Go on, go," that was Piccolo now, stepping forwards towards him. "He won't hurt you," he added.

The boy chewed his purple colored lip momentarily, then reluctantly lifted into the air to follow Vegeta.

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End file.
